Jebel Barkal as Royal Crown As soon as ancient viewers had recognized a uraeus on the Jebel Barkal cliff, they would surely, at the same moment, have tried to conceptualize the mountain as a great royal head or crown emerging from the earth. We have an inkling of this already in the first Piankhy stela, in which the king calls Amun by a unique epithet: Neb Nesut Tawy Dehen Wa’ab (“Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands of ‘Pure Cliff’ “) as opposed to the usual Neb Nesut Tawy hery-ib Dju Wa’ab (“Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, who is in Pure Mountain”). The word dehen has two meanings, both of which have been cleverly deployed here: “cliff” and “forehead/forehead with uraeus.” In its spelling in the stela, the only determinative used is of a head in profile, which would seem to name the mountain as the “Pure Forehead” (Reisner 1931, 90; Zibelius-Chen 1989, 198. Cf. also Adrom 2004). In stelae of the late Napatan kings Nastasen and Aktisanes (late fourth-early third centuries BCE), we find occasional use of a hieroglyph in the shape of a dome from which rises a uraeus (fig. 45). In most examples of its application, the sign appears as a determinative in the writing of the city name "Napata" where it is used as a subsitute for more common determinatives meaning “mountain.” From this context there is no doubt that the sign pictured Jebel Barkal, the specific “mountain-with-uraeus” of Napata (Priese 1977, 261; Kendall 2008, 131). One occurrence of this hieroglyph, however, is particularly revealing. This occurs in the lunette of the Nastasen stela in lines accompanying the figure of the king’s mother, who is shown on the left side ( fig. 46). The text informs us that the lady “gave the crown (i.e. to her son) in Napata because her father (i.e. Amun) caused to be established (there) the ka of the crown of Re-Horakhty.” Here the Jebel Barkal hieroglyph is used as a determinative of the word ka (“divine image/double”), which can only mean that the “divine image/double” of the “crown of Re-Horakhty” was the mountain itself. In other words, the queen crowned her son at Jebel Barkal, because Amun had made it in the shape of the royal crown! This remark is easily understood when the mountain is seen from the northeast in the late afternoon light. In silhouette it resembles a great royal head or crown with uraeus ( fig. 47a, b ). Since Re-Horakhty was the solar god closely associated with the king, ancient local authorities would have determined that his crown (manifested in the profile of the mountain) had to be worn by the Kushite monarchs, his earthly counterparts. Fig. 45: The name of the god “Amun of Napata” as written several times on the stela of Nastasen 1/6 Jebel Barkal as Royal Crown Fig 46: Drawing of the Stela text written of Nastasen over the (late image (Drawing fourth of century the byking’s T. Kendall). BCE). mother. Fig. 47a: Jebel Barkal, seen from the northeast side at sunset. The shape of the mountain is that 2/6 Jebel Barkal as Royal Crown Fig. 47b: Profile of Shebitqo (Shabataka), from the chapel of Osiris-Hekadjet at Karnak. (Image re Types of royal headgear that conformed closely to the shape of the skull are known to have been worn by Egyptian royalty since the Fourth Dynasty. Davies (1982) has shown that such crowns, worn by kings from the late Middle Kingdom, were called khepresh, which was the name of - and evolved into - the well-known “Blue Crown” near the start of Dynasty 18 (See also Bryan 2007). Leahy (1992), who tracked the later history of both the “cap” and Blue Crowns, concluded that their histories were continuous from the New Kingdom, and that “cap crowns” became standard royal headwear in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE in both Kush and Egypt and were not unique or original to the Kushite rulers – with the exception of the detail of the double uraeus. As he stated (1992, 237): 3/6 Jebel Barkal as Royal Crown “[The cap crown] enjoyed considerable popularity in the Ramesside Period, and continued to be shown between then and the arrival of the Kushites, who …then gave special prominence to it. Those who believe the Kushite headgear to be different have to argue that the very strong similarities to this traditional Egyptian cap are coincidental.” I would argue that because at least seven centuries earlier the Egyptians, too, had been aware of a “uraeus” on Jebel Barkal, we probably should at least be prepared to entertain a suspicion that one or another Egyptian forms of the cap crown, known since the Eighteenth Dynasty, may also have consciously imitated the shape of Jebel Barkal (figs. 48). Preposterous as this may seem to many Egyptologists, I will demonstrate below that, soon after its discovery by the Egyptians, Jebel Barkal became an important center of kingship and coronation ritual - just as it did later during Dynasty 25 and Napatan times in Kush - and it became a place, virtually identical to Luxor Temple, identified as a source of kingship and the royal ka (See III, H). (On the history of the Kushite crowns, see Török 1987.) Fig. 48: Head thought to represent a late Ramesside king or a high priest of Amun, possibly Her 4/6 Jebel Barkal as Royal Crown Iconography observed again royal represents gods dome-shaped at consort ). sandstone object concealed opening possessed in apparently fig. ). Fig. relief Jebel We 33c 50a, 49a: 49 tomb believed suggested encounter originally with Tefnut, b: Barkal, of bat Figure behind shrine Drawing Beg. symbolizing the aleast mirrored of deified uraeus inlay to naos. Jebel showing contained which N. dwell by the three found with a11 plaque the removable Jebel showing on dome figures Barkal Of in is within head the more its image in that cast carved the Barkal B afront. 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Horus” Meroë which (?) image of and registers Barkal Jebel by the figure That been (also 2008, lioncemented may (fig. door, in of of Barkal the to in sex made her of the lost) and of the 131-133). have three-dimensions, context, 49a, the mountain the smaller pictured transformations enthroned mountain human-headed dome-shaped would as into god hieroglyph, surface b). been a the (now model figures, facing This almost Another ina was rabbeted the (god separate oflost), figure the seen of chapel acertainly recognizable Shu suggesting hieroglyph (the in group example goddesses, shrine which a apparently arectangular and mountain. inlay), hollow “head” reliefs of is have had his is carved gods can found the is of as been This be the mountain believed to p Fig. 50a-b: Dome-shaped sandstone shrine as a model of Jebel Barkal, inscribed with the throne 5/6 Jebel Barkal as Royal Crown 6/6
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